The war in Yemen has raged for three years, claiming thousands of lives and forcing millions to flee

How did the war in Yemen start?

The fighting can be traced back to the handover of power from long-time autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh to his deputy and current president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in November 2011.

Salah was forced to stand down in a bid to return stability to the country following the Arab Spring, a series of uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

Hadi has struggled to deal with various problems afflicting the nation including al-Qaeda attacks, a separatist rising in the south, divided loyalties in the military, corruption, lack of food and unemployment.

Millions of civilians have been forced to go with little or no food because of the war.

And the situation is likely to get worse if the Saudi-led coalition does not cease air strikes.

The UN's humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Lise Grande, warned half the country - 13million people - could be engulfed by famine in the the next three months.

She told the BBC in October: “Many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that it was unthinkable that we could see a famine like we saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that we saw in parts of the Soviet Union – that was just unacceptable.

“Many of us had the confidence that would never happen again and yet the reality is that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at.”